Pets

In a room full of jumpy good boys and girls, one word echoes to calm the excitement. “Down. Dooooown. Down.” Then, “Good boy!” About 10 dogs and their owners gathered Saturday morning at Leash Free Living in Annapolis to learn some tricks and work on obedience for the new year. Trainer Sam Miyamoto...

My dog has bad skin allergies. She scratches herself constantly and chews her feet. It is worse in the summer and fall, but not really gone at other times of the year. The only medicine that seems to help is giving her prednisone. My veterinarian wants to try other drugs that may not be as bad...

My dog’s recent wellness lab results were normal except for a high cholesterol level. The veterinarian said it wasn’t anything to worry about, but I can’t help but worry. Is it okay to ignore it? Probably the most common cause of an elevated cholesterol level on your dog’s blood chemistry panel...

My 8-year-old beagle has always been healthy. The last few weeks I notice him drooling a lot. Does he need to go to the vet’s office? If your dog is drooling and it isn’t normal for him, you should have him evaluated by your veterinarian. There are many potential causes, most of which can be ruled...

Contestants lined up in the shade at Camp Letts in Edgewater Sunday afternoon, ready to take the stage at a beach wear competition for the SPCA of Anne Arundel County’s 6th annual Puppy Plunge. A 13-year-old dachshund named Sophie strutted past in a blue and white skirt and pink striped top. Sophie,...

I found a kitten and haven’t been able to find her owner. I would like to try to keep her but I already have an older cat. How can I make sure they will get along? How wonderful that you are giving the stray kitten a home. Cats vary in their tolerance of accepting new pets, but we always assume...

I have a one-year-old Siamese cat and am wondering why his eyes are crossed. The condition you are describing where a cat’s eyes turn inward toward the nose is technically called esotropia. While Siamese cats are well known for this trait, some mixed breed cats and other purebred cats such as...

I noticed that my dog has a little black bump on her eyelid. At first I thought it was a tick, but when I looked closer I realized it wasn’t. She doesn’t seem bothered. Do I need to do anything about it? It isn’t too unusual to find a small bump on a dog’s eyelid. This could be a tumor, but a swelling...

A team charged with evaluating the efficiency of county functions has released its first set of recommendations — a list that includes outsourcing Anne Arundel's animal shelter and asking government agencies to bid some of their services alongside private industry. The Commission on Government...

My daughter wants to get a pet hedgehog. Should I be concerned that she could catch something from this kind of pet? African pygmy hedgehogs are cute little spiny creatures. Despite being nocturnal, they are one of the more popular non-traditional pets in the U.S., with perhaps 40,000 families...

The weekly fishing report as compiled for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for Feb. 20 and also available on the internet at http://www.txfishing.com : CENTRAL AUSTIN: Water lightly stained; 54-63 degrees; 0.53 feet low. Black bass are slow on Texas rigs and shakyheads. Sunfish are slow....

As the outlook for coral reefs across a warming planet grows grimmer, scientists in Israel have discovered a rare glimmer of hope: The corals of the northern Red Sea may survive, and even thrive, into the next century. There is broad scientific consensus that the effects of climate change have...

Legislation to keep operating a state board that pays a federal agency to kill wolves that attack livestock and elk is on its way to Gov. Brad Little after a House vote Monday. The House voted 51-19 to repeal a section of Idaho law that would end the five-year-run of the Idaho Wolf Depredation...

Fear washed over Travis Kauffman as he wrestled with a thrashing mountain lion that attacked him on a Colorado mountain trail, but then his fighting instinct took over as he found its neck with his foot and suffocated the young cat. The 31-year-old trail runner recalled Thursday his encounter with...

For years, park rangers and conservationists working around Mexico's Nevado de Toluca volcano chased rumors of a monarch butterfly colony that wintered high in a forest of oyamel firs in some corner of the 132,000-acre (53,419-hectare) national reserve. Local woodsmen would report seeing some of...

Only two northern white rhinos exist in the world: both are female and neither can bear calves. But scientists have not given up hope of saving the species from extinction. They succeeded last year in creating hybrid embryos using frozen northern white rhino sperm and eggs from a southern white...

When a young mountain lion clamped its jaws onto Travis Kauffman's wrist and clawed at his face, he screamed a "barbarian yell," jammed his foot onto the animal's neck and held it there until the cat quit thrashing and died. After a couple of minutes, Kauffmann recalled Thursday, "it finally stopped...

The chemical compounds are all around you. They're on many fabrics, rugs and carpets, cooking pots and pans, outdoor gear, shampoo, shaving cream, makeup and even dental floss. Increasing numbers of states have found them seeping into water supplies. There's growing evidence that long-term exposure...

The federal government outlined an ambitious, potentially costly new plan to restore Atlantic salmon in the United States, where rivers teemed with the fish before dams, pollution and overfishing decimated their populations. The Atlantic salmon has declined in the U.S. to the point where the last...